As One Angler’s Voyage enters 2026, it is time to once again
survey the fisheries management landscape, and make some predictions as to what
problems and what solutions may arise in the upcoming year.
Last
year, as I set out on that task, I noted, with respect to 2025, that
“I don’t think that I have seen a year with so much potential
for things to go wrong in the past quarter-century.”
And as
I noted in last Thursday’s post, a lot did go wrong in 2025.
Unfortunately, all of the forces that combined to make last
year a bad one from a fisheries conservation perspective—a federal
administration intent on weakening environmental laws and Hell-bent on monetizing
the nation’s natural resources as quickly as possible, without regard for long-term
sustainability; a Congress equally dedicated to undoing a half-century of
progress on conservation issues in order to serve the short-term interests of
the corporate donors that keep them in office; an Atlantic States Marine
Fisheries Commission that seems unable and/or unwilling to make hard but needed
decisions; and an increasingly aggressive recreational fishing and boating
industry that, along with allied “anglers’ rights” organizations, is rapidly expanding
its efforts to block fisheries conservation efforts and weaken the federal
fishery management system in the name of “angler access” (that is, more dead
fish in anglers’ coolers, regardless of how that might impact the stock) and
the supposed “economic benefits” that such dead fish generate for the angling
industry—remain in place.
What also remains in place are the seeds that those forces
planted in 2025, initiatives that might have had relatively little or even no
impact last year, but which laid the groundwork for a potentially devastating
assault on the current fisheries management system, beginning in 2026.
At the same time, we also saw some modest conservation
initiatives launched in 2025, which may or may not bear fruit in the upcoming
year. Without exception, such
initiatives occurred at the state/ASMFC level which, while historically a place
where conservation efforts have gone to die, currently offers the best hope of properly
managing at least some of our coastal fish stocks.
With that introduction out of the way, let’s take a look at
what the new year might bring, beginning right at the top.
Executive Order
14276 and the National Marine Fisheries Service
When an executive order laments that
“Federal overregulation has restricted fishermen from
productively harvesting American seafood including through restrictive catch limits,
selling our fishing grounds to foreign offshore wind companies, inaccurate and
outdated fisheries data, and delayed adoption of modern technology,”
and establishes, as policy, the intent to
“unburden our commercial fishermen from costly and
inefficient regulation,”
it’s clear that the administration has fisheries managers and
the fishery management system in its crosshairs.
But Executive Order 14276 goes further than merely setting a
policy of deregulation. It instructs the
Secretary of Commerce to
“consider suspending, revising, or rescinding regulations
that overly burden America’s commercial fishing, [and]…identify the most
heavily overregulated fisheries requiring action and take appropriate action to
reduce the regulatory burden on them,”
and to
“request that each Regional Fishery Management Council…provide…updates
to their recommendations…to reduce burdens on domestic fishing and to increase
production. Building upon the earlier
goals, identified actions should stabilize markets, improve access, enhance
economic profitability, and prevent closures.”
It is probably significant that nothing in the Executive
Order requires the Secretary to ensure the continued health and long-term
stability of the fisheries subject to the intended deregulation.
Executive Order 14276 didn’t have too much impact on
fisheries management in 2025, although it undoubtedly colored at least some
NMFS decisions. Rather
than immediately engaging in a deregulation process, the agency spent most of
2025 seeking input from the regional fishery management councils and the public
on what fisheries should be addressed first and what regulations should be
revised or rescinded. The final comment
period on such matters didn’t close until December 15.
However, with the comment period closed, we can expect the
deregulation process to begin in earnest in 2026. While we can’t know exactly what form such
deregulation might take, we can probably take some guidance from stakeholder
comments submitted to NMFS and to some of the regional fishery management
councils.
The comments addressing conservation, as opposed to purely
economic and trade issues (e.g., providing emergency relief to fishermen or
restricting competition from foreign seafood imports) generally fell into a few
general categories.
Many of the comments sent to both NMFS and to the
Mid-Atlantic and New England fishery management councils sought commercial
access to protected areas such as the
New England Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument and the
Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument off northwestern Hawaii. In a similar vein, various
commercial fishermen and commercial fishing organizations sought access to areas
off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts that are currently closed to pelagic longlining,
while scallop
fishermen and organizations representing the ocean quohog and surf clam
fisheries asked to be able to dredge in habitat areas of particular concern intended
to protect Atlantic cod spawning and nursery areas, and also in what is
currently designated the Georges Bank Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning Closed Area.
Other efforts
at reducing bycatch, such as time and area closures to prevent the incidental
catch of river herring, also had their opponents. But it was notable that, by and large, the
comments made by commercial fishermen and commercial fishing organizations did
not generally seek to set aside science-based catch limits or similar
regulations.
Perhaps for that reason—that commercial fishermen did not generally
complain about the “restrictive catch limits” or similar management measures
cited in the Executive Order—NMFS reopened the public comment period for an
additional 15 days in December, presumably seeking more evidence of “regulations
that overburden America’s commercial fishing” industry.
Yet, although the Executive Order repeatedly referenced commercial
fishing, and didn’t mention recreational fishing at all, recreational
fishing organizations also provided comments on what they considered “burdensome”
regulations, and their comments were much more focused on catch limits and
other specific management measures.
For example, a few party/charter
boat associations asked that the recreational Atlantic bluefin tuna quota be
increased, while in the
South Atlantic, a large recreational industry group, the Center for
Sportfishing Policy, characterized NMFS’ proposal for a seasonal closure of the
snapper/grouper fishery off Georgia and northern Florida
“a federal bureaucracy run amok,”
and
“a convoluted response to a paper crisis,”
even though the proposed Secretarial amendment underlying
such closure was drafted as part of a
settlement agreement in a lawsuit brought by commercial fishermen fed up with NMFS’
failure to rein in chronic recreational overfishing, and high levels of dead
discards, in the South Atlantic red
snapper fishery.
“The overpopulation of Smooth Dogfish in areas such as Sandy
Hook and Raritan Bay is disrupting ecological balance by outcompeting other
species for forage. Current management appears
insufficient to address this issue.”
The Association also complained that summer flounder and
bluefish populations remained low and did not seem to be responding to current
management initiatives, although it was not clear how those comments related to
the Executive Order’s theme of overregulated fisheries.
Thus, what we have seen so far have been commercial fishing
interests primarily addressing regulations that might be best characterized as
presenting structural issues—areas closed to fishing, restrictions arising out
of the Marine Mammal Act and Endangered Species Act, requirements for paid
observers, etc.—while recreational interests have been more focused on what appears
to be the primary concern of the Executive Order, regulations that restrict the
ability to harvest fish.
While it’s not clear how NMFS will ultimately implement the
Executive Order, it isn’t hard to predict that the agency will not be striking
a precautionary stance, but rather will set annual catch limits at the highest
levels permitted by law and the most liberal interpretations of the available
data and scientific advice.
We will probably see the agency seek inventive ways to
circumvent the
requirements imposed by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and
Management Act, perhaps adopting new regulations that resemble the “Percent Change
Approach” adopted by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which might
comply with the strict letter of the law but flaunt the statute’s intent of
constraining the commercial and recreational landings to an annual catch limit
established by the biologists who staff each regional fishery management
council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee.
Thus, while we can’t be certain of precisely how the
Executive Order will be implemented, we can be pretty sure that any implementation
will weaken the federal fisheries management process and threaten the long-term
sustainability of the nation’s fish stocks.
A conservation-averse
Congress
While the current administration is clearly opposed to fisheries
conservation efforts and the regulations needed to maintain healthy fish
stocks, the current Congress presents a greater long-term threat to the health
of marine fish stocks, as it has the ability to make changes to federal law that
might take years, if not decades, to undo.
Such legislation is likely to take one of three forms: It will either override a regulation issued
by NMFS that is unpopular with the recreational and/or commercial fishing
industry (although it is doubtful that NMFS will issue such a rule, given Executive
Order 14276 and the administration’s views of fisheries regulation), make significant
changes to Magnuson-Stevens and/or the Marine Recreational Information Program
that is used to collect and analyze recreational effort, catch, and landings
data, or it will amend another federal statute that impacts the health of fish
stocks (e.g., the Endangered Species Act).
There are currently at least three bills pending in the
House of Representatives that exemplify such legislation.
As a practical matter, H.R. 470 isn’t going anywhere, as
NMFS’ decision not to institute such a bottom closure off Georgia and northern
Florida has rendered it moot. However,
to the extent that other regulations, perhaps including those already in place,
displease the fishing industry, other bills seeking to override such
regulations are likely to be introduced.
H.R. 5699 remains very much in play, and constitutes an
ongoing threat to the federal fisheries management system. We can probably expect to see additional
legislation, which also seeks to reduce the role of the Marine Recreational
Information Program, weaken the conservation provisions of Magnuson-Stevens, and/or
shift the management of some species from federal to more politically
vulnerable state fisheries managers, in the course of the upcoming year.
“This bill requires naturally propagated animals (e.g., wild
animals) and artificially propagated animals to be treated the same under the Endangered
Species Act of 1973 (ESA).
“Specifically, distinctions between naturally propagated
animals and artificially propagated animals may not be made when the federal
government makes determinations under the ESA, such as determinations to
designate endangered species, threatened species, or critical habitats.
“In addition, the bill requires the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to authorize the use of
artificial propagation of animals of a species when mitigation is required
under the ESA.
“This bill applies to all endangered or threatened species
regardless of when they were listed as endangered or threatened.”
In other words, the bill would allow a natural run of
salmon, steelhead, or any other species—the various sturgeon come to mind—to be
extirpated, so long as there was a hatchery that was ready, willing, and able
to keep the species, or fish from a particular run, from being wiped out. The fact that the fish were incapable of maintaining
themselves naturally, did not interact with their ecosystem in a natural manner,
and were more suited to artificial propagation than to natural spawning would be
irrelevant.
Thus, mining, timber, shipping, agricultural, hydropower, ranching,
or other interests would be able to degrade or destroy habitat essential to an
animal’s life cycle—say, critical spawning or nursery areas—and instead of those
doing the damage being required to mitigate it and/or discontinue the harmful
activity, NMFS and/or the Fish and Wildlife Service would be required to substitute
artificial propagation for natural reproduction while the destruction is
allowed to continue.
While such bills are a sort of niche legislation that won’t
impact most marine fish stocks, similar legislation that relieves industry of
responsibility for harming marine ecosystems and/or critical habitat is likely
to emerge in the upcoming year should industry deem them necessary.
The only bright spot is that we’re in an election year, and
given the controversies already raging over funding the federal government,
various political scandals, and intraparty quarrels, legislators may find
little time left to pursue fisheries legislation, particularly since, during
the second half of the year, they will be more concerned with raising money and
getting reelected than in anything that might resemble legislation.
As for Part II
Congress and the administration aren’t the only entities
impacting marine fish stocks. The
regional fishery management councils, the ASMFC, the states, and various
private entities all have their role to play.
But this post has already run long enough. I’ll deal with those other entities when Part
II comes out on Sunday.
